The Miley Cyrus Act

Call us retard, or out of touch, or whatever your sanguine heart would have us be labelled, we got to see Miley Cyrus' act only today. Hm. 

Now singers are a different breed altogether, that's why they are so crude and manage to get attention. Cyrus, by the by, did what was unpredictable, and abominable, in our opinion. Like the Indian item song routine each new song (or performance) tends to overstep what the other guys have done, thereby escalating the obscenity factor. Of course pop stars don't bring up children so they don't have to think about what effect the gestures would have on an unsuspecting generation. They would love it, as is their wont, but would they become better people, we doubt. The absolute slide in moral standards start with acts such as these, be aware and be forewarned.

Be that as it may, it has created a celebrity out of Miley Cyrus. Who has heard of her, not us. Now her albums will sell like that of Lady GaGa. In this world of ours the more the scandalous, the better it is. We don't have to exercise moral judgement anymore. Just go ahead and do it and become a celebrity, the bungalow on Sunset Boulevard with tennis court and swimming pool will soon follow. Provoke them, insult them, be obscene with them and they will make you into a celebrity, and will write about you in their scandal sheets. 

Because that's what the world has become, son!

Has Society Stopped Accepting the Lover?

Now that the dust has settled and the culprits have been caught, we are still shocked by the implications, nay, the nature of the rape of the journalist in Bombay. What resemblance does it have to the Delhi rape case, except that both were gang rapes, when multiple men rape a single woman.

Yes, both women were accompanied by men. Escorts. It's a well accepted fact all over the world that women with men - probably lovers, or spouses - be left well alone. Society affords its lovers their peace, to settle their own quarrels and talk their own language of love. Doesn't it?

But it seems it doesn't, at least, not in India. In both the rapes the women were accompanied by men, lovers or otherwise. Both men were threatened and traumatised before the women were subjected to their cruelty. 

Doesn't society accept its lovers? Those creatures of whom poems and novels are written. It is a society that has gone bad that doesn't accept vulnerable lovers, so we think. The signs are already out, the proclamations made. Make it known from roof tops and at village squares. Peet the dindoras.

Meanwhile for Nirbhaya another tear is shed, another totem pole demolished. Nothing has been learnt and nothing will be.

Oh, These Pakistanis! An Independence Rant.

Since the independence day has come and gone - though it was quite drizzly in New Bombay - a few thoughts and ruminations.

It's not right to be gloomy on this happy day, so I will start with something good. But, ugh, there is no good news to share. One remains optimistic through the grind of bad news, however, there's hardly any good news to go by, to share. Sorry, folks!

A submarine blew up after we announced proudly that we have constructed our own nuclear submarine. Could anything worse happen? Well, we also had launched our own aircraft carrier. However, the only news carried on the big boss of reporting BBC was of the submarine blowing up. Guess the Brits are cross because we decommissioned the HMS Hercules, which was what Vikrant was known as before we acquired it.

Be that as it may, we are in the market for submarines, and we can judge another scandal coming. Fellas, leave this transaction alone, I say. Because it's disconcerting to read about Liju's death after two months of his wedding. Look what dreams he carried to his watery grave. What happened? Who was at fault?

The Paks are very cunning people. That we know since our Saudi days. We had a lot of Pakistanis in the company we worked. They were all pretty decent in behaviour, except when it came to jingoism and chest thumping. "Thum Char Sau ko Hum Char Bus Hai." They would say. To this taunt our Sardarji watchman would say, "Saley thum hazaron ko hum ek bus hai." Bravo. Who started it?

Yes such was their jingoism and misplaced patriotism. So it's no wonder that after killing five jawans the Pakistani parliament passed a resolution condemning India's aggression. You must give it to them, surely, something like the Oscar of Demented Parliamentarians. Tomorrow, Pakistan will attack us with nuclear weapons and allege that we started the fight, they will fix matches and say we lost the game, they will invade Gujarat and say we captured Punjab. So, be warned and prepared for anything.

Enough for one Independence day. Sorry, we couldn't dwell about dollar prices, gold, American visas and such like. We will give them separate treatment in future episodes. Bye, and be good.

Snowden, Durga Shakti, and Antony, What Else? Saturday Musings.

It's another weekend and we, I mean our fingers, are itching to write another post here, this sacred space. The promotion we are planning for the completion of 10 years of blogging is underway. However, health concerns, certain anxieties prevent us from going full steam ahead. Do please, please watch out for it though.

So, Snowden is in Russia and Obama goes on to announce that he is not interested in snooping into the lives of us netizens. Then why is the Indian version of PRISM so zealous about applying cyber rules to ordinary citizens as seen in the Shaheen Dadha case? We do a double take when it comes to rules, don't we? Snooping on private citizens is, we maintain, an invasion of privacy. After all, a post on Facebook is not expressing ones views on a public platform, it is just an expression of views to a list of people on the forum who are friends. That's why Facebook classifies people in ones list a "friends." Now when has expressing an opinion to friends been a crime?

That said let's consider the Durga Shakti case. It is shameless the way a public servant is suspended based on unverified information and charges. Our politicians do jump the gun to receive media coverage, sure, but should they have gone to this extent? Then all public servants would become the menial servants of ministers, and of what use is their expertise and knowledge? Sand mining is a dangerous threat to our environment and what are we doing about it? When a public servant speaks up, this is what he/she gets.

The rain is still causing havoc in the country and all we can think about is our petty-minded little cover-ups and white washing. AK Antony failed so miserably in handling the case of the Jawans killed by Pakistani forces that he had to retract his statement. Has the former chief minister of Kerala lost face? True he has introduced a lot of reforms for the men in uniform. They have better salaries and better pensions now. But, should he have made that intemperate comment?

Since We Said We Would Post about Our Beard

And since we promised to post our beard on fb here it be, growing rather nicely! Since Amitabh's beard makes headline stuff, we thought this could be our own headline stuff. Uff!

Announcement: We Have Completed 10 Years of This Blog

We are proud to announce: this blog completes ten years of continuous blogging this month. Phew! We set about it in August 2013 and, what shall we say, it has been a rewarding and frustrating experience. Sometimes the post would appear sometimes it would disappear and we would wonder what happened. And, other times, we would read the blog and it would be full of bloopers. Then we would go and hastily press the delete button.

We are glad we did it,though it has had its frustrating moments. We were writing short stories and a novel.Yes, and poems too. All this made it too hectic. But we think the worst has passed, and good things are coming.

Gratified to know that no one abused us, or said an unkind word about our blog. Thank you readers, do come back again and again.

After two months of heavy rain the sun finally came out. So we took this picture standing at the door. Then we went for a walk and sun on our skin felt good. Feeling rejuvenated somehow, which portends some good things, hopefully.